Frontal crash sensing in a vehicle supplemental restraint system can be based on multiple distributed measures of vehicle acceleration. For example, a system may include a central accelerometer located in a central region of the vehicle and one or more remote accelerometers located in a frontal region of the vehicle. The various acceleration signals can be independently processed during a crash event to determine if the crash is sufficiently severe to warrant deployment, and differences among the acceleration signals can be used to characterize the crash event or to judge the extent of intrusion. However, not all vehicles are equipped with the same set of acceleration sensors, and the relationship among the various acceleration signals can change in the course of a complex crash event. What is needed, therefore, is a configurable and easily implemented deployment method that makes coordinated usage of the available acceleration data.